


Grave Guardians

by Ravenshell



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Cemetery, Ghosts, Headless, Reaper - Freeform, graveyard, skeleton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27148693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenshell/pseuds/Ravenshell
Summary: Some teens are in for a scare when they tamper with graves.Written for the 13 Days of Horror on devArt.  Day 4's prompt: cemetery shenanigans.
Kudos: 9





	Grave Guardians

Cemetery Shenannigans - Grave Guardians

A group of teens in Halloween costumes clambered through a gap in the hedge surrounding the cemetery.

“C’mon!” their leader slurred, already affected by the beer they’d snuck out of his parents’ pantry, his Pennywise makeup slightly smeared from the evening’s antics.

“Josh, wait up!” a girl in goth couture called as she ran after him, trying not to snag her skirt. Two other boys followed, busy shoving each other, finally trailed by another girl, dressed like a ladybug.

“Guys, come on… we shouldn’t be in here!” the last whined at her companions.

“That’s Rose… always gotta be the spoilsport,” one of the pair snorted.

“Whassa matter, Rosie?” the other teased. “Afraid what Mommy and Daddy will think if you get caught and go to jail?”

“N…no!” the ladybug retorted unsteadily. “It’s just… It feels disrespectful!”

The first boy’s smile widened. “You’re not scared, are ya?”

Rose clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “Get real, Garrett. I’m still here, aren’t I? Wait for me, Morgan!” she called to the other girl.

A clicking sound of a metal bead hitting the inside of a shaken spray paint can interrupted them as the boy in the lead started tagging a headstone. Rose’s jaw dropped.

“Josh! No! You can’t—”

“Can, and did,” Josh declared triumphantly.

The goth laughed and hung off his shoulder, reaching out a fishnetted leg to kick a headstone, knocking off a crumbling corner. “Oops,” she quipped, not sounding remotely sorry.

“Don’t do that! You’re gonna disturb something!”

“Ooh, like a ghooooost that lives in this graaaaave! Ooooh!” One of the pair danced a ring around Rose, waving hands meant to be menacing and spooky, but the fact he carried a wobbly rubber gorilla mask in one hand ruined the effect.

“Knock it off, Hugh…”

“Rosie’s just freaking out ‘cause of all those paranormal investigator shows she watches,” Josh teased.

The ladybug waves her arms insistently. “It’s because I watch those shows that I know you’re not supposed to piss off the dead!”

“And what’re they gonna do?” mocked Garrett, leaning hard on another gravestone until it gave under his weight and toppled. “Come out and say ‘boo’ at us?”

Hugh’s gaze drifted across the grounds. “Did you guys just see something?”

“Good one,” Josh laughed.

“No, really… Something moved back there, really fast.

“Probably a raccoon.” Morgan clasped her boyfriend’s shoulder. “Is there any more beer?”

Hugh shook his head, insistent. “It wasn’t a raccoon, it was person-sized…”

“OW!” Josh yelled, rubbing his shoulder. “Who’s throwing rocks?” He whirled on Garrett. “Was it you?!”

The accused held his hands up in a wtf expression. “I’m clear over here! How could I have thrown it if it hit you on that shoulder?”

“There it goes again!” Hugh shouted over them, pointing into the darkness. “It looked like a skeleton!”

“So, what, you’re gonna be scared about a bunch of bones?”

“Agh!” Garrett exclaimed, rubbing a spot on his chest as rock impacted it. “Whoever that is, they’ve got a good arm!”

Eerie sounds of low moans and whispering carried to them, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. “You guys hear that?” Morgan murmured.

“Somebody’s tryna punk us!” Josh announced to his crew. Scanning the graveyard, his eyes finally caught what Hugh’s had, an impossibly fast-moving wisp of white in the darkness. “Over there!” he yelled, and bolted after it in pursuit, the other two boys and Morgan following, leaving Rose alone by herself.

“No, no, no!” she called after the pack, intent on staying put, but as the creepy, unexplained noises continued, nerves got the better of her and she trotted skittishly after her friends. She caught up to them in time to witness a figure in a tattered, dirty sheet with a jack-o-lantern head uncoil from behind a tombstone.

“ _LEAVE THIS PLACE AND DEFILE IT NO MORE!!_ ” its voice boomed over them, unnaturally loud, pointing a finger at them through its tattered shroud.

The group of unruly teens looked shaken, huddling together, except for Josh, who boldly approached the specter. Garrett, forced to the front, held out his plastic serial-killer knife in defense. Something whistled through the air, and half of the fake blade fell to the ground. A strangled squeak issued from the boy’s mouth, but he seemed unable to make his legs function.

“Duncan, is that you, man?” Josh said, nonplussed, as he yanked the pumpkin from its perch, revealing no head, or neck, for that matter. He tossed the jack-o-lantern high in the air in horror, backing away as his series of mistakes hit home with him. Rose ran forward to catch it before it hit the ground.

The apparition rose to the top of the gravestone with effortless grace.

“ _LEAVE, BEFORE IT IS YOUR HEAD I CLAIM! ”_ the voice thundered, drawing two razor-sharp swords and holding them aloft above them. All but the ladybug cut and ran, the headless ghost pursuing them, carefully floating from the top of one grave marker to the next until the teens scrambled back through the hole in the hedge they’d entered through, leaving their compatriot behind.

Rose stood there, holding the pumpkin, waiting for its owner to return, when she was tapped on the shoulder. She gasped and faced the skeleton Hugh had seen… or rather, a large, strangely-shaped person in a black suit with precisely detailed representations of bones painted on it in glow-in-the-dark paint. “Shouldn’t you be heading after your friends?” it asked her.

She shrugged. “They can take care of themselves. Probably.”

A figure in a black cape and hood dropped out of the tree next to them. “I dunno, that kid in front smells like he peed himself.” He pointed to the pumpkin in her arms, while the skeleton went to the defaced gravestone, sprayed something on it, and began rubbing it clean with a rag. “You tryin’ ta get ahead in life, or can I take that off your hands?”

“Oh! Um…” she stammered, handing the ‘head’ off to him. “All yours…”

The headless ghost walked back to the group. “ _WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE? DO I NEED TO SCARE YOU OFF LIKE YOUR FRIENDS? ”_ he rumbled at her. _“ YOU SHOULD BE AFRAID OF GHOSTS, YOU KNOW.”_

“Well, I would, maybe, if you were a real ghost.”

 _“ HOW DO YOU KNOW I’M NOT A REAL GHOST?” _the specter queried, waving one of its swords.

“Real ghosts don’t need voice modulators,” she said.

_“ OH…”_

The hooded figure started cackling at him. “Boy, she got your number, Leo!”

The headless ghost began fiddling with something near its waist. “ _DON, HOW DO I TURN THIS THING_ …Never mind, found it.”

“Cool costume, by the way. How’d you do the head thing?”

“Oh, easy,” ‘Leo’ replied, setting the pumpkin back on his shoulders, his voice now sounding like it was coming from the jack-o-lantern instead of his shoulders, “I had one to spare.”

She trailed him as he started wandering away. “But… I mean…”

“Good job on the sound effects, Mikey! Come on out!” The pumpkin head swiveled around, searching for their missing team member. “Mikey?”

“Come on, goofball!” the figure in the hood called.

“Don, is Mikey over by you?”

The skeleton hefted the toppled headstone back into place, packing the dirt at the base with one oddly-shaped foot. “Mikey?” he called as well, but receiving no answer, shook his head.

Rose was shepherded along by the ghost toward the cemetery gates. “Don’t you want to wait for your friend?” she asked as she was escorted.

“Mikey tends to get distracted,” Leo told her. “He’ll turn up.”

“I wanna scare the kids next time,” said the hooded person as they walked.

“You don’t have the right vocabulary for it,” the skeleton told him. “A Brooklynite ‘Hey, you! Get outta here!’ isn’t going to intimidate anyone local.” The figure grumped beneath his hood, muttering about how Leo got to do everything.

As they neared the gate a moment later, a figure wearing a Charlie Brown “too many eye-holes” sheet ghost backed out from a side path, looking around disorientedly.

“There he is… Mikey!” Leo called to get his attention, and the Charlie Brown ghost trotted over, seeming to hide behind the more menacing headless ghost.

“Leo, there’s real ghosts here!” he announced, sounding genuinely shaken, as far as Rose could tell.

“Uh huh, of course there are,” Leo replied, trying not to sound too patronizing as he patted the scared little ghost’s strangely rounded back. “Here you are, miss.” He indicated the hole in the hedge where Rose and her friends had entered.

“Thank you,” she said. “Nice meeting you.”

“Thank you, for trying to stop your friends from doing the damage they did. Don’t let them push you into getting into trouble.”

“I won’t.” She crouched down and tried to wiggle through the gap, getting stuck each time she tried as her little gossamer wings got caught in the bushes.

“Here, why don’t I just give ya a little boost up and over,” the cloaked figure suggested, lacing what seemed to Rose to be not enough, and green, fingers for her to step on.

“I thought you didn’t like bugs, Raph,” the skeleton heckled from behind him.

“Ladybugs,” ‘Raph’ replied, indicating Rose, “are nice. Butterflies, fine. Cockroaches, mosquitos, centipedes, wasps… anything else squiggly that’s got more’n four legs and a deathwish for my sanity, bleah. Hard pass.” He offered his boost to Rose again. “Bend your knees, and crouch as you land,” he advised. She nodded and stepped onto his hands.

“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home!” he said as he launched her over the wrought iron fence, as if tossing an eighty-pound person cost him very little effort at all.

She landed lightly, the crouch Raph had directed her into lessening the impact. She turned to see if they were going to follow. “Aren’t you coming?”

Leo gave a little chuckle. “We’ll be staying here through the witching hour. There’s bound to be more groups of kids coming around to cause trouble.”

“Yeah, this place is Grand Central Station on Halloween.”

“Not all of them are miscreants,” Don added optimistically. “Some just come in to have séances or do harmless dares, or just wander around in the spooky dark graveyard. We just keep a lookout to make sure no one does any major damage.”

“Well… Happy Halloween, then,” Rose said, and turned to leave. "Thanks for not stealing my head!”

Leo laughed. “Happy Halloween!”

“Happy Halloween!” Raph echoed.

“Stay safe!” Don added.

Mikey said nothing to her, instead turning to the others. “I’m telling you guys, there’s real ghosts here! How come you never see what I see?!”

**Author's Note:**

> Day 5 and Day 9's fics will be companions to this fic.


End file.
